Indefinite
by thebookhobbit
Summary: A series, sort of, of ficlets based on various poems. Current story: Private As A Cat, featuring Beyond Birthday, with My Mother's Body by Marge Peircy. Spoilers for Another Note.
1. Imperfect

**Imperfect**  
"Summary: The mask she kept up was the thing that kept her from revealing the need, the hunger just below the surface..." Kiyomi Takada introspection from one who dislikes her thoroughly. Inspired by Barbie Doll by Marge Peircey._  


* * *

This girlchild was born as usual  
and presented dolls that did pee-pee  
and miniature GE stoves and irons  
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.  
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:  
You have a great big nose and fat legs._

Kiyomi Takada wouldn't have told anyone, but she had been teased as a child for her plump legs and too-straight nose. Her legs had grown shapely over the high school years, and her face grew to fit her nose, but the scarring from the teasing would be forever, because she'd taken their comments so deeply.

Kiyomi Takad wouldn't have told anyone this, either, but she had a desperate need to be perfect. Only in perfection could she find comfort of any kind; it was her solace. The mask she kept up was the thing that kept her from revealing the need, the hunger just below the surface for someone who loved her even when her makeup was off and her hair was horrid and the mask had fallen to the floor in a pool of tears and blood. She clung to Light Yagami in the desperate hope he could prove this, but she was so afraid to show him she wasn't perfect- she knew he wouldn't settle for less. And Teru- the serious, just, totally effeciant Teru Mikami. She liked Teru, maybe even something a little more, she respected him, she enjoyed talking to him, but she knew he loved all things orderly and neat and perfect. She couldn't be imperfect. The only two people in the world with any kind of justice would abandon her and she'd be alone and without Kira and imperfect-

Kiyomi's parents had pushed her to be perfect. She had been the only child of rich old money in high-paying jobs, elegence and perfection always surrounding her. Her mother was a lawyer and beautiful, incredibly beautiful, and she worked at it; plastic surgery and expensive cosmetices and a painted smile in bright red lipstick that flattered her complextion.

Her father was the psycologist. Specialist, he only saw rich, tasteless patients with too many worries and lots of stress-related disorders and anxienty that gave them insomnia that no pills could truly cure. They paid him enourmous amounts of money to give them something that could help for just a little while so they could keep up appearances.

It was all about that, wasn't it? Keep up appearances. If you seem wonderful and beautiful, then others will assume you are wonderful and beautiful, and you will be loved and cared for and adored. Perfection was the key to success, the only key. She strove, in all things, to be perfect; perfect grades, 100 instead of 99. Perfect looks, winning the beauty queen personality. Perfect friends, shunning immature little girls like Misa Amane and talking to the intelligent Teru. Perfect boyfriend, perfect husband one day, she hoped. Light Yagami was perfect as well, and that was why she loved him, because he was everything she couldn't be, not really, not when she was alone and her mask started to slide and she had to cry, she just had to, no matter what it would do to her mascara. As long as she didn't show it to anyone, it was okay. Keep up apperance.

And she did, too. She graduated with top honours, many sophisticated and witty friends, well-liked and well-respected if only for her perfection. And on the inside a little girl who had never really been hugged or cuddled or loved unconditionally cried out for something more.

The funeral was closed-casket, her corpse charred practically beyond recognition. There was nobody to see her in a pink and white nightie, nobody to comment on how pretty the undertaker's cosmetics and turned-up putty nose made her look. Her sophsticated friends came and displayed appropriate grief without really meaning a word of it, not caring if another member of their high society died; less competition, they had fewer things to worry about when another heart stopped beating. And nobody who attended had ever loved or cared for her, had ever really seen into the depths of her soul and said "It's okay, I care, and I love you no matter how imperfect you are."

Kiyomi Takada had been betrayed, killed, used and spit out by the man she loved, and he'd never even bothered to love her, even perfect.  
In the end, she had failed.  
_  
In the casket displayed on satin she lay  
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,  
a turned-up putty nose,  
dressed in a pink and white nightie.  
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.__  
Consummation at last.  
To every woman a happy ending.__

* * *

_The quotes are both from "Barbie Doll" by Marge Peircey, and I highly recommend it. It's perfect for Takada. Frankly, I dislike her, because I adore Misa whom she treats so cruely, and because she's always seemed so fake. However, this ladee on LJ wrote a 20 Truths fanfic about her, and that made me interested, and when I saw this poem, I was all "OH HAY IT'S TAKADA."  
Actually I didn't realize it till about a half-hour later, but hey, here it is.  
It's short. But on the long side for me, who's used to drabbles. Please review and all that jazz, and hoping you enjoyed it even if you dislike Takada as well. :3****

Next up is B, with "My Mother's Body" and the lines "I became willful, private as a cat; you never knew in what alleys I had wandered- you called me bad and I posed like a gutter queen in a dress sewn of knives.


	2. Private As A Cat

_I became willful, private as a cat.  
You never knew what alleys I had wandered.  
You called me bad and I posed like a gutter  
queen in a dress sewn of knives. -Marge Piercy, from the poem My Mother's Body_

He had left Wammy's at the usual fifteen.  
Beyond Birthday refused to submit. He refused to be nothing but a toy, L's backup, and so he had left the place of his salvation, the place of his condemnation, the place where he had been doomed as number 2, nothing but Backup. He was not weak like A who collapsed- B's first memory of blood ever was finding that child huddled up in a pile of its own flesh, dead as anything that never ever lived, guts spilled over the floor and brains splattered, the stuff of life spewn over the orphange floor.  
A dramatization, perhaps, caused by how shocked he'd been. All the same, it had intoxicated him. It was with difficulty that he had hidden his glee from the eyes of the observant Roger, the joy caused by his rival's defeat.  
Weak. He had decided right then and there, in the rush of it all, that he'd beat L one was or another. L was the only rival he had left now, the only obstacle that stood in the way of become the first, the only, the perfect one. So he had to work a plan.  
Slowly he withdrew. From everything, anything, anything that would block him from his plan. Everything else ceased to matter, his own life included. And as he continued down this path, they mocked him, rejected him, failed him.  
So he left them, wandered in other alleys; commiting barefaced acts of havoc, for nothing but his own amusement. Evil, they called him, a menace, a villan, and L was aware of his exsistance. His triumph, finally the century's greatest detective has his attention.  
He poses in his own way, killing and killing and killing three times, almost ready for the fourth. He drops clues so subtle even L himself does not get them, which isn't any fun, but it's rewarding to find out he is so much more intelligent than the one who stands in his way.  
He's certain of victory now, the trial he sets for himself certain to succeed, he's absolutely positive that he will win until that woman finds him and saves him and he's alive and he shouldn't be-  
But he is, and he rots in a jail cell till he dies a few years later.  
_Freedom at last._

* * *

...meh. I'm not pleased with this. I just got Another Note and read it in about an hour, and loved it, and B=totally amazing, I was hoping this would turn out better, but I don't think this turned out okay. Also, it's too short. For some reason, this failed.  
Actually, it kind of depresses me that it failed. I really wanted to write something good about B.  
Oh, well. I'll try again later.  
OH. I also feel it only fair to say that Bialy gave me the idea of B for this line. Thanks, sorry.


End file.
